I’m so exhausted by this situation that I don’t even want to write about it, but it seems that my disgust has just inched past lazy ‘ol exhaustion, so I might as well get it off my chest.
Damn near every shooting that happened this weekend in the greater Seattle area has been termed “gang related” by the police department. The majority of the victims were children; which, is old news to Seattle.
I have a few different thoughts on this issue. I’m tempted to say, stop calling it gang related. When the majority hears that, they instantly tune out; instantly. People seem to over-simplify what that means, and since they’re pretty confident they don’t have any bad ass gang members in their family, it’s not a problem that impacts them, it impacts the “other people”. I’ve already poured out my personal story of how the “gang shooting” label impacted my life when someone I loved very much was gunned down outside of a party.
On the other hand, if we do have such a huge gang problem, why isn’t anything being done? Let’s be clear, Seattle’s Mayor (Hi Greg!),isn’t doing a damn thing. Oh sure, he can point to his plans, and task-forces, and press conferences. He’s not doing anything. He wasn’t even planning a task force or a plan until people like yours truly called them on it and they admited that they felt they “do enough” already.
The majority of gangs in Seattle aren’t groups of ruthless thugs. Often times when 2 or more gather, the term “gang” get’s thrown onto the situation. If someone from Rainier Beach get’s into an altercation with someone from the Central District, it’s instantly looked at as “a turf war”.
It is downright shameful that we can let kids kill kids the way that we do. 15 year old kids can’t walk into a gun store in Seattle and buy a gun. So where the hell are all the guns coming from? They’re all stolen? That’s a lot of stolen guns, that have killed a lot of kids in the last year and a half. Sounds like a problem to me.
Why do we have so many kids in the streets all the time? And why don’t they have anywhere to go; why aren’t we providing things for them to do.
“Back in the day”, as they say, Seattle (and other cities) used to have a strong youth employment program. Sure they still have a youth employment program, but it’s not that great. It used to be that students who really need a job, who really needed something to do, who really needed that mentorship and sense of responsibility (and MONEY) spent their time working. Now the program recruits kids that they think will be “easy” to work with, which is subjective at best.
It used to be that the community center in RB was the place to go; now the city and the school district are chopping the place apart and those who live in the neighborhood feel as though the “welcome” sign has been pulled in, and the door locked. They don’t feel wanted or valued, at home or in the community.
I’m not here to come up with the solutions. Some of you might be tempted to tell me to stop complaining if I don’t want to offer solutions, but that’s just silly. I don’t get paid to offer solutions, I pay into a tax system that provides a local government to use its vast resources to come up with a solution.
My job is to agitate.
As is yours.
So where the hell are the solutions?
I had the EXACT same thought re: youth engagement. I work at a school near South Center and some of our students knew the kids involved in Saturday’s shooting (it is a small world down here). What has come through loud and clear is that the mall (in this case) has become a community center for teens… and young mothers, and senior citizens. It’s warm, it’s dry, there is an ever-changing parade of people passing by, it’s free. When people are bored, they have emotional energy to get all hopped up about stupid beefs. When people don’t feel valued, they sink lower and lower and it gets all too easy to forget that actions have consequences and that guy over there has more in common with you than he has different. This is where social advocacy and community development come in, baby. I don’t have any answers, either, but what I DO know is that we’ve got to start trying because this right here, this vacuum, isn’t the answer.
Way to get to the heart of the matter, beyond the hype. But then, that’s why I read the Sable Verity!
Also, I’m disturbed by the assertion in the Times that “police are looking to see if the incidents over the weekend are related”. Conspiracies and revenge theories are not going to get us anywhere, people. Just ’cause the victims were black (true at Vito’s as well?) does NOT mean they all knew each other or were connected. SHEESH!
Why do we have so many kids in the streets all the time? And why don’t they have anywhere to go; why aren’t we providing things for them to do.
Actually there are plenty of places for them to go. Perhaps they would rather be out of the watchful eyes of adults and out with their friends? C’mon! When I was young I would rather be out with friends, maybe doing sordid things, then being supervised by adults.
It is naive to think kids are out causing trouble cause they have no other choises.
As far as the mayor is concerned- really, if people can’t control their own kids it is bullsh*t to expect “the government” to be able to. Social programs have and can only do so much, the police are only useful AFTER a crime has happened, and blaming poverty is weak, since poverty most strongly hits women and older people, not the people who committ the most crime- young men.